Scientists gear up to help restore Iraq's 'Garden of Eden'

GREG BRUNOThe Gainesville Sun

Published Monday, March 10, 2003

GAINESVILLE -- As the Pentagon pushes ahead with plans for war in the Middle East, a group of international scientists, including a University of Florida ecologist, are gearing up for an unorthodox environmental project: restoration of Iraq's "Garden of Eden."

Bordered by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Mesopotamian Marshlands once covered 3,500 square miles in southern Iraq and Iran -- interconnected marshes, wetlands, and lakes that supported endangered birds, abundant fish stocks and an ancient wetlands-dependent indigenous population known as the "Ma'dan."

Regarded by biblical scholars as a possible site of the ancient "Eden," the marshland's historical roots run deep. The Sumerian civilization, authors of the first alphabet and early epics, are thought to have inhabited the marshes around 3,500 BC, and in recent years, nearly 400,000 Ma'dan, or marsh Arabs, called the area home.

But following the end of the Gulf War in 1991, Saddam Hussein ordered the widespread drainage and diversion of water entering the wetlands from the north, leading to a near 90 percent reduction in total acreage, according to a 2001 United Nations Environment Programme report.

Now, a multibillion dollar effort, funded in part by the State Department and overseen by the Iraq Foundation, a U.S.-based Iraqi opposition group, aims to reverse Hussein's damage.

"We're starting off with the basics," said Thomas Crisman, director of the Howard T. Odum Center for Wetlands at UF and one of about 15 scientists studying restoration plans. "We're trying to figure out, 'Can we restore the ecology, and can we restore the culture of the people who lived in these marshes?' "

Since August 2001, international members of the "Eden Again" task force, as the project is known, have worked to develop a restoration framework, outlining strategies and identifying challenges in returning the wetlands to their pristine state.

In February, members of the advisory committee, including Crisman, met in Los Angeles to discuss the restoration hurdles, such as how to meet the needs of the area's indigenous people and methods to reduce threats from high salinity.

Once launched, the international team will seek to consult with local stakeholders, scientists and support staff, facilitating efforts to return the wetland's ecosystem to a point of ecologic functionality.

"Our project is not to do the restoration -- it needs to be done by the people of the region," said Suzie Alwash, a professor of geology at El Camino College in Torrance, Calif., and director of the project. "Our job is to promote the project."

Projects organizers said the status of the restoration is not dependent on U.S. war efforts, and would continue regardless of an American-led invasion. Alwash said she has already met with scientists in Iran and Kuwait to discuss the plans.

Final costs estimates are not available, and the level of State Department participation is classified. But based on square-mileage estimates alone, returning the area to its historical state is expected to be pricey.

"If you take the southern third of Florida, dry it up and burn it, use it for military activities, that's what we have here," Alwash said.

Comparing the project to the state's $7.8 billion Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, she added: "Maybe in a couple of years we will be able to get Mesopotamian Marshlands as good as the Everglades are now. But to get it back to a truly good condition could take longer -- maybe decades."